“So you wished to help your poor comrade. Tell me what you intended saying to her.”
“I intended to tell her how I was passing the time, and then to praise him for his courage and skill, his desire to be great, his gentleness—O, there are a thousand things to say!”
Tula smiled sorrowfully. “Did you imagine she would learn to love him from that?”
“Why not?” asked Io’, innocently.
“I cannot explain now; time will teach you. My brother, long will an Aztec woo before he wins our wayward sister!”
“Well,” he said, taking her hand, “what I wanted to say to her will come better from you. Ah, if you but knew him as I and the ’tzin do!”
“Was he not a chosen messenger to you?”
She shook her head doubtfully. “I fear she is beyond our little arts. Fine speeches alone will not do. Though we painted him fair as Quetzal’, and set the picture before her every hour in the day, still it would not be enough. Does he come often to the city?”
“Never, except for the ’tzin.”